Chapter 54: Nathan’s Third Task
24th June 1995, Hogwarts
(Nathan POV)
After the seriousness of the conversation with Jasmine, it took some time for the atmosphere to turn back to the jovial one before. It was a bit sad that Jasmine was alone in Hogwarts. He wondered why the family that adopted her wasn’t here. She refused his parents for them, and they couldn’t be bothered to show up to support her, he thought bitterly.
He put the thoughts of his former twin to the back of his mind and focused on the joke his uncle Sirius was telling. After a long walk around the castle, they returned to the Great Hall for the evening feast. The tournament dignitaries were all present. Ludo Bagman and Cornelius Fudge had joined the staff table now. Bagman looked quite cheerful, but Cornelius Fudge, who was sitting next to Madame Maxime, looked stern and was not talking. His former sister was nowhere to be found, something that wasn’t unnoticed by the minister that was muttering unflattering things about her under his breath.
There were more courses than usual, but Nathan, who was starting to feel really nervous now, didn’t eat much. As the enchanted ceiling overhead began to fade from blue to a dusky purple, Dumbledore rose to his feet at the staff table, and silence fell.
“Ladies and gentlemen, in five minutes’ time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the Quidditch field for the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament. Will the champions please follow Mr. Bagman down to the stadium now.”
Nathan got up, being cheered up by the Hogwarts students to make way to the Quidditch field. He was accompanied by his family that wished him good luck and let him walk with Fleur and Krum to where the third task will occur.
“Feeling all right, Nathan?” Bagman asked as they went down the stone steps onto the grounds. “Confident?”
“I’m okay,” said Nathan. It was sort of true; he was nervous, but he kept running over all the hexes and spells he had been practicing in his mind as they walked and what he learnt from Dumbledore and his father, and the knowledge that he could remember them all made him feel better.
They walked onto the Quidditch field, which was now completely unrecognizable. A twenty-foot-high hedge ran all the way around the edge of it. There was a gap right in front of them: the entrance to the vast maze. The passage beyond it looked dark and creepy. Surprisingly enough, Jasmine was waiting for them at the edge of the maze. When had she gotten here?
Five minutes later, the stands had begun to fill; the air was full of excited voices and the rumbling of feet as the hundreds of students filed into their seats. The sky was a deep, clear blue now, and the first stars were starting to appear.
Hagrid, Professor Moody, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick came walking into the stadium and approached Bagman and the champions. They were wearing large, red, luminous stars on their hats, all except Hagrid, who had his on the back of his moleskin vest.
“We are going to be patrolling the outside of the maze,” said Professor McGonagall to the champions. “If you get into difficulty, and wish to be rescued, send red sparks into the air, and one of us will come and get you, do you understand?” The champions nodded.
“Alright, champions, pick an entrance to the maze and go to it.” Bagman continued and the four of them walked away in different directions, to station themselves around the maze.
Nathan looked at the other champions to see if they were as nervous as he was. Fleur was fidgeting a bit and Krum was tapping his foot. But his face was absolutely blank, even his eyes looked hazed. He must be very anxious, then. He looked at Jasmine to find her looking almost bored. Like she didn’t feel like this was going to be a challenge. Not on his watch. He was going to prove her wrong and win this tournament.
Bagman, then started his commentary, “Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin! Let me remind you how the points currently stand! In first place, with ninety-five points, Jasmine Evanshade. In second place, with eighty-five points, Nathan Potter, of Hogwarts School. In third place, with eighty points, Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute. And in fourth place, Miss Fleur Delacour, of Beauxbatons Academy.”
The noise and cheers of the spectators were so loud, Nathan was barely able to hear himself. He could see his family in the front row, cheering him on and Padfoot turn into his grim form and howl. His stifled his laughter. He waved at them, causing them to cheer even louder.
“Ms. Evanshade, you can start in three, two, one.” Then a canon fired a shot in the air and Jasmine calmly walked into the sinister looking maze.
Bagman started commentating on what was happening, “As a donation to the tournament from the Sayre family, we were given a few gadgets just released in America. The Sayre family expressed their disappointment that they couldn’t support the champion that graduated from their most prestigious academy, Ilvermorny, Jasmine Evanshade. The enchantment linked to each champion will allow to monitor them and allow people from all over the world to watch the task from the perspective of the champions.”
Suddenly, some kind of mist appeared in front of the spectators, allowing them to watch and hear what Jasmine was doing in the maze.
“Now, let’s go back to our champion. Ms. Evanshade seems to not have encountered any trouble other than a devil’s snare so far. She delt with it easily. Everything seems to be going well so far. She seems to encounter a nightmare enchantment. For those who don’t know what that it, it’s an enchantment that allows the subject to live their worst nightmares. Not that is matters here, Ms. Evanshade seems to already know the counter curse and dispelled it. A strong competitor, that one. Oh, it’s time for the second competitor to enter the maze. Nathan Potter, you are allowed to enter the maze, now.”
A firing of the canon later, and Nathan hurried forward into the maze; his sister was already ahead, and he was nervous. The nightmare enchantment was something he had never heard of and wouldn’t have been able to beat.
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The towering hedges cast black shadows across the path, and, whether because they were so tall and thick or because they had been enchanted, the sound of the surrounding crowd and Bagman’s were silenced the moment he entered the maze.
To have any type of lighting, he muttered, “Lumos”. He had no idea how his sister was able to walk in the maze without it. It was a lot darker than it showed to the spectators. Nathan heard the canon go off once again. Krum had entered the maze. Nothing happened so far, his path almost seemed deserted, so he decided to hurry up. Still a couple of minutes later and there was nothing still.
Nathan heard the canon once again. All of the champions are inside the maze, now. “Point me,” he whispered to his wand, holding it flat in his palm. The wand spun around once and pointed toward his right, into solid hedge. That way was north, and he knew that he needed to go northwest for the center of the maze. He continued running ahead until he found the next right turn and took it.
The path was empty, too. And he continued without any issues. The lack of obstacles unnerved Nathan. Jasmine had gotten through two obstacles in just a couple of minutes. It didn’t make sense that he would have nothing to do. Surely, he should have met something by now. It felt as though the maze were luring him into a false sense of security.
Nathan continued until he saw the corpses of his family. His father’s eyes were empty, his mother had a hole the size of his hand on her chest and Rose had a large gash across her neck. He steeled himself, this was a boggart, he had just seen his family minutes ago. His uncle Remus had taught him about them last summer and it had taken the same form. “Ridiculous,” He cast, and the boggart burst into smoke with a crack.
Nathan continued again, following the point me spell until he saw some odd golden mist. He didn’t have a single idea what it was, and he didn’t want to find out. He cast a “Ventus” dispersing the mist and continued on. Something he was thankful that he had done since he felt nauseous as he went through where the mist was previously.
He continued and he knew that the cup was somewhere close by from what he gathered from the point me spells. He met nothing for ten minutes but kept running into dead ends. Twice he took the same wrong turning. Finally, he found a new route and started to jog along it, his wand light waving, making his shadow flicker and distort on the hedge walls. Then he rounded another corner and found himself facing a Blast-Ended Skrewt.
Damn these things had grown. He should have killed them when they were hatchlings. He wouldn’t be in this situation if they hadn’t. The Skrewt in front of his was almost ten feet long and looked like a two tailed giant scorpion somehow. Its armor looked very thick and durable. Nathan attempted to stun it but the spell rebounded off the armor. He remembered Hagrid saying that the armor was very spell resistant but everything else, not so much.
He didn’t have time to think because the Skrewt issued a blast of fire from its end and flew forward toward him. And Nathan cast the impediment jinx on its shell-less underside. It worked and the creature was frozen in midair. Nathan followed it by a stunner to make sure it wouldn’t come back after him.
He ran away as fast as he could to get away from another possible Skrewt using the point me spell to get closer to the cup. He had been hurrying along his path for a few minutes, when he heard something in the path running parallel to his own that made him stop dead.
“What are you doing?” yelled Fleur’s voice in a thick French accent. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?” And then Nathan heard Krum’s voice. “Crucio!”
The air was suddenly full of Fleur’s screams. Horrified, Nathan began sprinting up his path, trying to find a way into their path somehow but there was nothing. Fleur kept on screaming, and he felt desperate and started hit the hedge between them with one reductor curse after another making a small hole that allowed him to go through. Looking to his right, he saw Fleur jerking and twitching on the ground, Krum standing over herm his eyes empty and blank. The imperius curse, shit. His father had taught him how to recognize the sign, back when he was paranoid of everything.
Nathan didn’t even need to think and stunned the Bulgarian. The proceeded to do the same to the French witch. While he had no qualms saving her, he still wanted to win, and she needed medical attention anyway. He pointed his wand into the air and let out two streams of red sparks, signaling the teachers to come get them. The only person in the maze left was Jasmine, she was probably the one that put the imperius on Krum to torture Delacour. Dumbledore was right, she was already gone and there was nothing left of my sister left. To think that she put an unforgivable on another competitor…
As horrible as this situation was, a part of him was glad that only his former sister was left. He only had to beat her for this nightmare to end. He hadn’t even wanted to be the Hogwarts champion either way, but he’ll do his best to represent his school.
Nathan moved on, continuing to use the Four-Point Spell, making sure he was moving in the right direction. Every so often he hit more dead ends, but the increasing darkness made him feel sure he was getting near the heart of the maze. Then, as he strode down a long, straight path, he saw movement once again, and his beam of wand light hit an extraordinary creature. He was definitely thankful that Hermione made him study magical creatures.
It was a sphinx. It had the body of an over-large lion: great clawed paws and a long yellowish tail ending in a brown tuft. Its head, however, was that of a woman. She turned her long, almond-shaped eyes upon Nathan as he approached. He raised his wand, hesitating. She was not crouching as if to spring, but pacing from side to side of the path, blocking his progress. Then she spoke, in a deep, hoarse voice.
“You are very near your goal. The quickest way is past me.”
“So . . . so will you move, please?” said Nathan, knowing what the answer was going to be.
“No,” she said, continuing to pace. “Not unless you can answer my riddle. Answer on your first guess, I let you pass. Answer wrongly, I attack. Remain silent and I will let you walk away from me unscathed.”
Nathan didn’t want to risk it but saw no harm in listening to the riddle, “Okay,” he said. “Can I hear the riddle?”
The sphinx sat down upon her hind legs, in the very middle of the path, and recited:
“First think of the person who lives in disguise, who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies. Next, tell me what’s always the last thing to mend, The middle of middle and end of the end? And finally give me the sound often heard During the search for a hard-to-find word. Now string them together, and answer me this, which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?”
It was always Hermione that was good with riddles, not him but he tried to at least solve it. It took a while, but he found the answer, “a spider.” And the sphinx smiled at him and let him pass.
The cup was close, he could feel it. He walked over and just round the corner; the Triwizard Cup was gleaming on a plinth a hundred yards away. He was so distracted by finally finding the cup that he didn’t notice the Acromantula that was hiding in a corner and attacked him. He managed to get away, but he was thrown into the air.
He landed on his leg, and he felt a sickening crack and intense pain on his leg. In his pain, he managed to cast a pain reliever charm that his mother taught him decreasing the pain. His leg was definitely broken. He was still lying on his back when the Acromantula attacked him again. He cast the spider banishing charm at it and it was banished away from him and fled.
He limped over to the cup; he was going to win. He beat Jasmine, his life will finally go back to normal. He looked at the cup in front of him and grasped a handle. Instantly, Nathan felt a jerk behind his navel. He didn’t know that the cup was a portkey. But at least now, he was safe from that nightmare of a maze.